I AM THAT I AM, this is the most important journal entry I have written to date. What is the right way to express the marvelous beauty of resurrection? Grant unto me the right words to persuade another to join me in the resulting celebration of life. For the experience is truly one that knows no end. What words would persuade another to begin their life anew, and actually experience what Jesus accurately phrased as being born again? What words would cause another’s soul to burst forth with such force, and joy, that no man would voluntarily restrict their soul’s marvelous expansion and divine, free expression? Thank You, I AM THAT I AM, for delivering the answers to my sincere questions. And so it is.
Sharing parts of my personal experience seem appropriate because I have an advantage of faith that readers and future listeners of this entry do not: experiencing and surviving an all-night supernatural encounter that rivals any vision or first-person encounter recorded in any holy scripture that I am aware of.
I was raised on Christian theology and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I was also a minister who preached the gospel. Preaching was one of my most enjoyable life experiences. However, my life felt void of the power available to all men through the gospel, although it was surely full of the grace afforded to all believers. By choice, I separated myself from the church because the outcomes promised by faithful application of the gospel did not feel manifest in my life. I could no longer deliver a sermon while enduring intolerable suffering without myself experiencing the promised and expected result of the believing the gospel. In my anger and despair, I told The Creator I had to experience Him in a new way if I were to preach in His name again. Then anger and despair morphed into forcing myself to believe that The Creator was not real in order to release my last hope of being free from the suffering I experienced.
The Creator, being faithful, delivered His answer unto me in a marvelous way that is still unfolding. “God’s way are past finding out.” (Romans 11:33).
I am a witness to the Apostle Paul’s declaration of this marvelous truth. When I was out of fellowship with The Creator, The Creator re-established fellowship with me in an undeniable way to give me the confidence to again profess His name publicly before another. The demonstration of behavior that sparked my desire to re-establish fellowship in return began with the intentional use of my thoughts and speech in noble ways, and intentionally rejecting anything to the contrary for thirty (30) consecutive days. The exercise is called the thirty-day mental diet. The goal of the exercise is to complete 30 consecutive days without saying anything contrary to what I wanted to experience in life, in addition to refraining from dwelling on anything negative for a prolonged period of time. Speaking a contrary word or prolonged contemplation of anything negative required me to restart the exercise. As a result, a practicing family attorney re-acquainted himself with silence because I was that determined to complete the challenge. What further enhanced the experience was that if I spoke, then I only spoke what was good, or found what was good, about every life circumstance even if the circumstance did not look or feel pleasant.
While completing the thirty-day mental diet, I subscribed to the belief that in my brother’s eye, there is my own soul. Meaning, anyone I had the pleasure of interacting with, that person and I had some similar desire, which resulted in me having the patience and compassion for them I would want someone to have with me. My journey led me to others, men and women, who felt like me yet clothed in another’s skin. Said another way, to my amazement, I felt like I kept meeting myself in another person’s body. Surely this was no coincidence.
The unexpected but foretold result was that I began to see my interconnectedness with the whole of The Creator’s body, which subsequently added depth to Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Once the truth of the scripture became undeniably apparent to me, it became easy and commonplace, for me to hear The Creator’s voice guiding and encouraging me through the mouth of another. How do I know this to be true? Because people began speaking my private thoughts to me as I kept my mouth silent to complete the thirty-day mental diet. In one instance, an elderly Creole gentleman from Louisiana sparked a random conversation with me in the Harris County, Texas courthouse and asked me how much consideration I gave to the origin of words, their meaning, and the effect words had upon a person’s life.
Imagine me hiding the astonishment I felt that I would meet such a man while governing my speech.
I fully accepted that I was experiencing something supernatural. The Creator was certainly showing Himself to me in a new way, and these moments enabled me to complete the thirty-day mental exercise with joy. I knew at any given moment I would receive The Creator’s wisdom through the mouth of a man or woman to help me complete the uncommon journey I began.
Upon choosing to see every circumstance as good and treating every man as a manifestation of The Creator, I began experiencing The Creator’s good in all things. If I was there, then The Creator was there. If The Creator was there, then the moment must also be good. Which means that every moment must, by default, be a good moment. Without exception. Which meant, if I sought what was good about a circumstance, then I would come to know and understand what was good about the circumstance. Seek and ye shall find. (Matthew 7:7). This began my spiritual awakening. I began discerning with spiritual eyes and learned how wonderfully superior the spiritual eye is to the natural eye, and I subsequently began to trust my spiritual eyes more than my natural eyes. The Creator, being faithful, responded in kind and gave me more to spiritually discern once spiritual trust was established. “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’” (Matthew 25:21).
A curious decision preceded my soul’s resurrection. I was on an excursion in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that led me to a cliff where I could jump into the water from a height I had never jumped before. I have a vivid, childlike imagination and I believed the path we traveled was at some point also traveled by indigenous warriors on their way to defend their freedom. As I walked the path and waded through the water, I imagined I was one of them bravely going to defend my freedom, and the freedom of those I loved. The imagined moment created the feeling and image of an actual moment, and the feeling of ancient bravery was firmly impressed upon me. It may be the first time I had ever felt so fearless. The night I arrived back home, while watching television, a powerful childlike force leapt out of me that seemed to understand everything, and I instantly began seeing the orderly movements of Creation anew.
My life has two distinct levels of consciousness. Before the childlike force leapt from within me, and after. This began my soul’s marvelous resurrection.
The scales of my old natural eyes fell, and through my new natural eyes which now discerned all things spiritually, I began to experience the beautiful order of God’s Creation as a new creature. At the time, I was unaware of the magnitude of what was actually happening to me and within me. Nevertheless, I knew I had never experienced life with such wonderful clarity. The enthusiasm and belief I had as a child returned unto me, as if that part of me arose from a prolonged slumber and was eager to play and explore his new surroundings. I was thoroughly enjoying this joyful manchild experience and allowed the re-awakened child to live freely. I believed all of the beauty and marvelous order before me. At the time, the best way I was able to describe the experience was that I finally began experiencing the salvation the gospel says is available to all men. “He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'” (Matthew 18:2-4). My childlike enthusiasm and I have been in fellowship with The Creator ever since.
The salvation I experienced felt better than anything I ever felt as a practicing Christian. Christian sermons too often reminded me that I fell short, and as a result, I focused too much attention onto my shortcomings. My new experience of salvation felt like freedom from all constraints. I felt much more than hope. I felt assured of good things coming unto me, and experienced a corresponding result. This was the first time that things would happen sometimes within moments of my imagining them. If I called a good situation forward, many of the marvelous outcomes indeed manifested. Life for the first time was truly amazing. I was in awe of The Creator. I was in awe that experiencing life in this way was possible. My life felt like a child’s wonderland. Thus, accelerating and amplifying supernatural my moments.
One night during one of my joyous meditative experiences, strong winds blew though the oak tree in my front yard with great force. I looked to the left and right of me, and saw motionless trees in my neighbor’s yards. Only my tree was tossed about waiving in marvelous celebration of the moment.
I was amazed.
At the same time, the rocks in my landscaping began crackling as if infused with static electricity, and the scripture of Jesus saying the rocks would cry out came to my memory. “And he answered and said unto them, ‘I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.'” Luke 19:40.
I sat in my chair astonished. I enjoyed the magnificence of what I was witnessing. I accepted all that I saw with joy and excitement. Soon thereafter, I experienced my first vision.
If it was important, I could recall the audiobook I was listening to when I went into my first trance and saw images of multiple faces flash before me in rapid succession. This was the first time I experienced fear within the experience. I saw the faces of ancient and historic men. Many I did not recognize, yet I felt that I knew who they were. Those I did recognize were men who accomplished great things, however, they experienced great suffering or were assassinated. It was the first time I told The Creator I did not want something that accompanied what I know now was the initial stage of my resurrection experience.
To be continued….
Mind of the Prophet 